UPSC 2017-18: PIB Summary and Analysis Nov 09

He was addressing the International Mentoring Summit with the theme ‘Mentoring Young Grampreneurs for Inclusive Growth’, on the occasion of Silver Jubilee of Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST),

The Vice President said that rural India is rapidly changing and the rural youth too are well informed, are eager to learn, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and quite often even global aspirations

The Vice President also said that the aim of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission was to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households by enabling them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities.

Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST)

The Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST), a non-profit organisation, was set up in 1992 primarily to help disadvantaged young people in India to develop business ideas into viable enterprises with the guidance and support of a mentor

National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM)

NULM was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA)

The aim was to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households by enabling them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities.

The core belief of National Urban Livelihoods Mission is that the poor are entrepreneurial and have innate desire to come out of poverty. The challenge is to unleash their capabilities to generate meaningful and sustainable livelihoods.

The NULM will focus on organizing urban poor in their strong grassroots level institutions, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment venture by ensuring easy access to credit.

The Main Features of NULM are:

Coverage: In the 12th Five Year Plan, NULM will be implemented in all districts headquarter towns(irrespective of population) and all other towns with population of 1 lakh or more as per Census 2011. At present 790 cities are under NULM. However, other towns may be allowed in exceptional cases on request of the States.

Target Population: The primary target of NULM is the urban poor, including the urban homeless.

Sharing of funding: Funding will be shared between the Centre and the States in the ratio of 75:25. For North Eastern and Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), this ratio will be 90:10.

He emphasised that Disaster Mitigation Strategy should be areas of priority for addressing Disaster Risk Management

Shri Rijiju said that reaching out to the people and communities is the primary responsibility of all stakeholders and efforts should be to make people aware, informed and to guide them during emergency situations.

He urged community groups and stakeholders to find innovative ways to inform people on time in scenarios of Disaster Management.

Disaster Information Volunteers (DIV)

It is a Programme, wherein a network of trained volunteers would provide supplementary information on disasters in their local communities to assist Government relief efforts through the Facebook Workplace platform

The programme will be piloted in two disaster prone states – Assam and Uttarakhand

Facebook will now share its disaster maps, developed using aggregated, de-identified data, with NDMA. These maps can aid swift disaster response by providing real-time, actionable information.

Facebook has partnered with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and a non-profit body, SEEDS in India, to offer tools to these agencies to help them respond more effectively to natural disasters.

It will offer ‘disaster maps data’ that illustrate aspects like people’s movement and concentration of Facebook users in the given area before and after a calamity.

What are disaster maps?

Disaster Maps was introduced globally in June and uses aggregated location information that users have chosen to share with Facebook.

These tools have been deployed in Peru and the US.

Disaster mapping is the mapping of areas that have been disturbed through extreme natural or human caused disruptions to the normal environment such that there is a loss of life or value to the area. It is normally possible to delineate the area affected by the disruption.

Kolkata-Khulna Bandhan Express

Prime Minister of India & Prime Minister of Bangladesh Jointly along with Chief Minister, West Bengal Flag off New Cross-Border Train between India & Bangladesh, “Kolkata-Khulna Bandhan Express” from Kolkata through Video Conferencing

Two railway bridges in Bangladesh built with Indian funding were also opened and a proposed international passenger terminal launched at the same time.

Two Rail Bridges in Bangladesh and International Rail Passenger Terminus at Kolkata Station also Inaugurated

More than 52 years after it was stopped, India and Bangladesh launched the Bandhan Express to resume train services connecting Kolkata with the industrial town of Khulna, the third largest city in Bangladesh.

The Bandhan Express will take the Petrapole and Benapole border route. It will be a weekly service.

Background

In 1965, the Barisal Express connecting Kolkata to Khulna was stopped because of the India-Pakistan war.

The Bandhan Express is the first train connecting Kolkata and Khulna after that. The train is the second between the two countries.

The Maitree Express between Kolkata and Dhaka Cantonment was flagged off in April 2008. The tri-weekly train has been a success since its launch, seeing 90 per cent occupancy. The train has capacity of 456 passengers.

The names of the two train services connecting the two countries — Maitree (friendship) and Bandhan (bond)